The inside walls of the building which housed the research department was covered in runes. This was the first building Alerius had seen which had visible runes.

Its like they want everyone to know that this place is warded, he thought, is this a way of discouraging theft or are they announcing that they have something very valuable guarded here?

He approached the receptionist and when he got near her, he stretched his aura into the white squire badge pinned on her shirt. After a few moments had passed an information window popped inside his head:

Name: Irene

Status: Academy staff

He was surprised that his aura was able to easily pass through her shroud, when he had tried to do the same with their instructor, his aura had been repelled by the Instructors shroud.

He could feel Irene's aura as it entered his shroud and then enter his triangular badge. The badge had changed its shape automatically the time he had reached Paste Phase.

"How can I help you mr Alerius"

"I wanted to check out the skill crystals that you have available."

"You can buy and see the available aura blue prints in the illustration room. Sit on the chair you will find in there and the list of available aura blue prints will appear. The whole process is automated in order to guarantee that the aura blue prints that a cultivator buys remain private. You will understand what I mean when you get there."

Alerius could understand the need for such privacy, with the tournament coming at the end of the following month, abilities which could serve as trump cards would be useless if everyone knew about them before the fighting took place.

He thanked Irene and went to the illustration room.

The inside of the illustration room was painted completely in white. The only thing he could see in the room was a table and a chair which was right beside the door.

He closed the door and went to the chair. When he sat down, the table lit up and a list of 50 abilities and their prices appeared on the table.

"Shout the number beside the ability to see an illusion of the skill performed," was written at the conner of the table.

On number 1 was listed basic fire control. Alerius decided to see how this whole setup worked so he shouted, "number 1."

The room darkened and when the light returned, Alerius found himself still sited in the same chair and table but everything else had changed. The white room had disappeared and replaced with what appeared to be a desert. The sandy land appeared to be endless and he could even see the sun shining in the sky but what got his attention was the person standing in what was previously the center of the white room.

The person had long black hair and was about 2 meters tall. Fog covered his face so Alerius couldn't tell his features or gender. Alerius reasoned that the illusion showed an ancient cultivator because the person was putting on a cultivators robe and those where no longer used.

The cultivator raised his hand and a green ball of flames appeared on top of it, the flames then started changing colors just like the way the Instructor had showed them.

After the colors of the flames had cycled through the colors of the rainbow for the fourth time, the room darkened again and the white room returned.

If the creators of the illustration room where aiming to impress the buyers then they had succeeded in Alerius's case. He then checked all the abilities which they had covered in class and every time he shouted the number beside the ability. the room changed and showed the same cultivator, who then performed the said ability.

After he had seen what they had covered in class, he decided to watch the rest of abilities listed.

After going through the list, he decided to buy 5 abilities which he thought would help him the most during the tournament.

The first was called basic aura manipulation: the skill crystal contained a memory of all the the 6 abilities they had covered in class from Aura manipulation to lightening except for aura crystalization and it only required 5 L.E to be activated. He had chosen this because skill crystals which only contained one basic ability only, required 2 L.E each in order to activate.

The second was the ability to turn invisible when standing still and it required 2 L.E to activate.

The third was called Doppelganger, and it would allow him to create an illusionary copy of himself. The only disadvantage of this was the illusion could not be moved once created. It required 3 L.E to activate.

The fourth was a mixture of skill crystal and ability crystal and the ability it granted was called Elemental Lance. It would allow Alerius to create an aura crystallized lance which can the be filled with either light, lightning or fire. When thrown, the lance would detonate upon impact and release the element contained inside. In the illusion demonstration; the ancient cultivator had managed to leave about a 10 meters deep crater on the place the lance had landed on when he had thrown it. It required 4 L.E and 10 N.E to activate.

The last ability was called Lighting Shroud. This ability would shrink his shroud from the 1 meter radius to 10 cm radius and when he channeled electricity through the Shroud; it would increase his speed and electrocute anything he touched. Alerius found it a good ability for close combat fighting. This required 8 L.E and 20 N.E to activate.

Buying the aura blue prints required shouting the word buy followed the number beside the ability of interest then a panel would appear on the wall. The aura blue print would appear after the required amount has been put inside the panel.

The total amount of crystal marks for these abilities was 49 squared crystal marks. He had to go and get this amount from the credit shop where he had saved about 60 square shaped crystal marks from his allowances.

Alerius was sitting in a testing room. These were rooms used to train magic in because these rooms were warded to absorb magic. This would prevent accidents from occurring.

He took the basic manipulations crystal skill and held it in his hand. He check his stats to see if he had enough L.E

Spiritual Energy: 39

Life Energy: 24 (0+24)

Natural Energy: 0

Talent: 3.5

Main Attributes

Soul: 60

Aura: 40

Mind: 32

Secondary Attributes

Spirit: 33

Will: 31

Analyze: 32

Perception: 31

Knowledge: 30

The five aura blue prints he had bought required 25 L.E to be activated but he wasn't going to activate them at the same time so it wasn't a problem. He remembered that taking too many might distort his personality so he had decided to activate one once a week.

He wrapped the crystal with his aura and willed it to enter his skin. Alerius blackout when the crystal entered his skin.

When he came to, he was standing in a white room. He immediately knew that it was not his body because the body was taller and he couldn't control it even though he felt everything the body was feeling at that moment.

Alerius could see and feel the Aura that formed the Shroud, it appeared denser and more vivid than his own. He could feel the body lift its hand and he could also feel how the body manipulated the aura so that it could start vibrating until a ball of flame formed.

So that's how it done, Alerius thought to himself.

He had felt how the body changed the frequency of vibration without disrupting the flames until the color changed.

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The body had then manipulated light, followed by force fields, telekinesis, lightning and lastly it had formed a domain and then contracted the shroud so that it was not more than 1 cm above the skin.

At the end, alerius had blackout again and when he had come to, he was back in his own body again.

*****

Week 49

A man in golden armor was blocking our path to the portal gate.

"Take this, I will catch up with you after I stop him and get his key" I shivered as I spoke though the sun was shining brightly in the sky.

I gave my portal key to the woman I held in my hands. This was the last time I was going to hold her and we both knew it. I ran my fingers through her hair and kissed her for the last time.

"Take care of our child." I said and touched her stomach.

I could feel the life force of my unborn child.

I didn't want my child to be born in a place where people fought every generation for passage to Yezir; the mythical cultivating paradise.

Even though I was fighting for the same passage, I was doing it so that my child would be born on Yezir and I would do anything to make sure it happened.

My wife broke free from my embrace and when our eyes met, I could see the tears in her eyes.

She looked so sad that it broke my heart.

I couldn't bear to see her this sad so I looked away from her, turning to my gaze to my foe.

My wife was right to to despair, the person blocking our path was a scion of the Agashi kingdom. Scions of that kingdom underwent secret rituals that enabled them to control blood energy and reach the Overlord Realm.

"Go," I said, I could see that she wanted to remain but doing so would not change the result.

She gripped my hand, squeezing it tightly, "I love you. I will always wait for you on Yezir." She said and backtracked the way we had come so that she can use an alternative route to the gate.

"Are you ready." My foe asked me.

"Thank you." I said. I was grateful that he had showed mercy by allowing her to go back.

I contracted my aura, I felt it stretch across my skin, crystallizing into armor. An Underlord's armor was almost unbreakable but that was if your opponent was not an Overlord.

I held out my hand and my favorite weapon materialized: the lance appeared and I started pouring electrical aura into it.

I prepared to throw it and that's when my opponent made his move.

The light around us suddenly started pouring into him until the whole world went dark and he became the only source of light.

"Son of Dawn" I thought, it was the ability that scions from the agashi kingdom were known for. I had to make my move before my opponent became an incarnation of the sun's wrath.

I threw my lance at the being made of golden light but before the lance could reach it, the being exploded and my whole world became a white colored world filled with pain.

*****

Alerius woke up with a shout.

"I am fine, it was just a dream" he continued repeating this same phrase to himself while rocking on the bed.

He could still remember the feeling of his skin burn and peel off from his body. It had felt very real even though he knew it was just a dream.

He had been having this same dream every night ever since he had assimilated the Aura blue print for the Elemental Lance.

He had read in the library that at the time of making a skill crystal, additional memories sometimes also got attached in the process of engraving the skill memory in the skill crystal. Especially if the memory was very important to Underlord.

The person in the dream must have survived his fight and later worked at the academy. Sadly Alerius didn't have enough influence to ask who produced the memory crystal he had used.

He had read that the nightmare will stop as his knowledge attribute increased. He knew this was true because after he had increased his knowledge attribute to 40, he no longer woke up not knowing who he was.

Once he had calmed down, he started preparing himself. The tournament was going to be held in the morning of that very day so he had to be ready.

The good thing that came with the nightmare was that he was now very proficient when it came to forming the Elemental Lance because he made it every night. Experiencing pouring electrical aura in the lance every night had also helped with lightning control. This had helped him master the Electrical Shroud faster. He had also mastered the the other three abilities he got from research department so he was as ready as he was likely to be for the tournament.

*****

The tournament was going to be held in the stadium.

The seats were packed with people the time Alerius arrived. The audience and the students were separated by a barrier which enclosed the participants in a dome.

He could see the 30 raised circular platforms where the fighting was going to take place. Each platform was raised about 1 meter above the ground and had a radius of 10 meters.

He joined his fellow students who were congregated near the platform which was in the center of the stadium.

Some students couldn't stand still and kept fidgeting, Alerius felt better knowing he wasn't the only one nervous. Students having badges with the same house colors formed cliques. He recognized some, mostly those representing the Noble Houses of Zophia but he couldn't recognize the majority of the foreign House colors.

He saw the students from House Ururu but he didn't go there because they had also ignored him just like the other students ever since he had arrived at the academy so he decided to stand alone.

He recognized the instructors from their white badges as they started arriving. Shortly afterwards, an old man walking with the aid of cane appeared and the noise suddenly stopped and the place became quiet. The old man had a face covered in wrinkles and a head covered completely with grey hair. The old man appeared very frail as he climbed the stairs on the middle platform very slowly but Alerius knew that the man was anything but weak. The old man was an Underlord and was called Elias Kapulya; the Patriarch of House Kapulya and the man in charge of the academy.

Lord Elias started addressing the crowd after reaching the center of platform.

"The tournament about to begin is not about determining the strongest student but a fair way of simply picking 300 students who can enter the ancient ruin." He smiled briefly and continued, "if it were possible, I would allow all the students to enter the ruin and not have the tournament take place but sadly that's not up to me."

Alerius could hear the audience's murmurs after that comment was made. Lord Elias raised his hand and the crowd became quiet again. " there will only be three rounds. Those who will win all three will automatically qualify and those who will lose all three rounds will automatically be disqualified to enter the ruin. For those winning two or one; depending on their actual number, another round can be fought to determine those who will qualify."

Lord Elias then pointed at the 3 boxes on the platform "each box contains 600 small mables and each one of you will get a red mable from the red box then the green one from the green box and lastly a blue mable from blue box. When you channel your aura into the mables a number will appear inside it. The set up is such that two mables will have the same number in each box so the numbers will go upto three hundred. For example in round one; those having red mables with the the number one inside will fight each other, those with the red mables with the numbers forty inside will fight each other just like that. Your opponent for round two is determined by the green color and for round three its the blue color.

I hope I get weak opponents, Alerius thought.

"The rules are simple; if you leave the platform then you have lost."

The Underlord went on talking about how he expected the students to conduct thelmselves during the fights and after he allowed the students to climb on the platform and pick the mables that will determine their fate.